The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Vehicles include brake lights that turn on when a vehicle's brakes are applied by the driver. The brake lights serve as a mechanism to warn other drivers behind the vehicle as to when the vehicle is slowing down, so that the other drivers may also slowdown in order to avoid a collision with the vehicle.
However, there are some cases where brake lights are ineffective for warning other drivers that the vehicle is slowing down. For instance, a driver in a rear vehicle may be unable to see the front vehicle's brake lights without having a direct line-of-sight to the front vehicle's brake lights. If the vehicles are traversing a sharp turn or any other intervening vehicles are between the front vehicle and the rear vehicle, the driver of the rear vehicle may be unable to see the front vehicle's brake lights and may therefore not be warned in a timely manner. Additionally, weather conditions such as fog, heavy rain, and/or heavy snow may limit the transmission range of the brake lights. Further, the brake lights may malfunction, and/or the driver of the rear vehicle may simply not be paying attention to the front vehicle's brake lights. Such situations may prove to be potentially harmful to the driver of vehicle.
Adaptive cruise control mechanisms are used to maintain a desired cruising velocity of a vehicle to maintain a safe distance from a preceding vehicle. However, in dense traffic, the preceding vehicle may undergo considerable velocity changes, necessitating similar velocity changes in the vehicle. Emergency electronic brake light is another mechanism used to warn the driver of a vehicle of imminent collision. However, these mechanisms typically detect only the case of the preceding vehicle braking hard, thereby not reacting to remote vehicles that are at significantly slow speeds already. Thus, the above stated collision avoidance mechanisms provide an uncomfortable experience for the driver of the vehicle in some cases.
Accordingly, there is a requirement for a technique that enables warning the driver of the vehicle about an imminent collision in a time effective manner, wherein the driver of the vehicle may comfortably slow down to avoid collisions.